Considering the spiritual value of art alongside pragmatic humanitarian needs
Written by Josh Tiessen
In 1970 Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn opened his Nobel Prize lecture with the enigmatic phrase, “Beauty will save the world.” Many thinkers have reflected on this puzzling quip, which many trace back to 19th century novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky.
The phrase returned to my mind after I was invited to teach visual art in rural Jamaica with an organization called Equip to Serve. The trip was scheduled for July, but just one week before our team embarked, Hurricane Beryl hit the island as the deadliest storm in over a decade. I wondered, Is an art camp really what Jamaicans need? Surely, humanitarian relief would now take precedence.
The value of art, and particularly of beauty, has been debated for centuries. Much of the debate in modern and contemporary art draws on 18th-century European thinkers such as Immanuel Kant and bourgeois elites who championed a form of beauty based merely on frivolity and pleasures reserved for the upper class, manifested in romanticized landscapes. Refined European “taste” was used to disparage “primitive” art of uncivilized peoples.
Later, more blatant abuse of beauty manifested in socialist realism, in which state-sponsored artists falsely portrayed the Soviet Union as a utopia. As a result, many modern artists bristled against beauty, still suspicious of how it had been manipulated by political power.
In the Scriptures, however, beauty is neither superfluous nor coercive. Jesus begins His public ministry in Nazareth by quoting a messianic prophecy from the book of Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, / because he has anointed me / to proclaim good news to the poor. / He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners / and recovery of sight for the blind, / to set the oppressed free, / to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19).
He then rolls up the scroll and says, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Further in the Isaiah passage, we read the Messiah will bestow on the downtrodden “a crown of beauty instead of ashes” (Isaiah 61:3). The Bible paints an honest picture of a fallen world with flawed figures. Yet, beauty is woven throughout its pages as a sign of hope and restoration.
According to American artist and author Makoto Fujimura, beauty is necessary for countering the utilitarian pragmatism prevalent in the West where a person’s value is based on their productivity. In his book Culture Care Fujimura writes, “A Christian understanding of beauty begins with the recognition that God does not need us, or the creation. Beauty is a gratuitous gift of the creator God; it finds its source and its purpose in God’s character. God, out of his gratuitous love, created a world he did not need because he is an artist.”
Fujimura asserts that while beauty is not necessary for our daily survival, it points beyond a world of scarcity and drudgery to a world of generosity and abundance—ultimately connecting us to the why of living.
Despite limited communication due to power outages in Jamaica, our host the Holy Spirit Centre insisted our team go ahead with the art camp. I was amazed that while many locals were still without electricity and water a month after the hurricane, students signed up for the camp and some walked five miles each morning to attend, learn, and enjoy a morning snack and lunch.
What moved me most were the looks of delight on their faces as they were given their own easel, canvas, paints, and palette. It was the first time these teenagers and adults had ever experienced the pure joy of painting. They remarked on how much it meant that a professional artist would come out to the “country of the country” (their phrase for the backwoods) to pass on skills.
There are many mission organizations around the world providing humanitarian relief. The Centre that hosted our camp also operated a medical clinic and hired locals to tend the garden and farm. I do not wish to downplay the importance of providing basic human needs like shelter, food, and medicine. The question is whether we believe people living in poverty are worthy of being taught how to paint, play an instrument, or sew. Art is not about survival, but it elevates the soul and points to the transcendent and lavish love of our Creator. It’s one of the pleasures that makes life worth living.
Art is not about survival, but it elevates the soul and points to the transcendent and lavish love of our Creator. It’s one of the pleasures that makes life worth living.
I opened each day with prayer and a devotional on a creation-themed Bible passage. It was fun teaching perspective drawing and leading students through a landscape painting of the Jamaican Blue Mountains featuring their national bird, the red-billed streamertail hummingbird.
Perhaps some would argue our painting should have focused on something less beautiful, perhaps the gritty side of rural Jamaica not shown in the Sandals tourism commercials? Why not paint downtown Maggotty, which unfortunately lives up to its name—with dingy shacks that line the streets serving as bars, clubs, and homes alongside vagabonds and mangy stray dogs?
I believe there’s a place for such social realism, and I took hundreds of photos for Canadians back home documenting the sad reality for those who think Jamaica is paradise. But I chose to show the local Jamaicans how to paint their beloved “Doctor Bird” as they call it, this exotic hummingbird only found in Jamaica.
Ultimately, I believe the pursuit of beauty dignifies human beings because it uniquely reveals how we are image bearers of the Master Artist who specializes in beauty. In that sense, beauty is a necessity for saving the world. May we aspire to walk in the footsteps of Christ, bestowing “crowns of beauty” on those in ashes around us.
Josh Tiessen is a fine artist, speaker, and writer based in Stoney Creek, Ont. His latest art monograph book Vanitas + Viriditas released in September. Provided cover photo shows Josh Tiessen, author, with students from the art camp displaying the paintings they created.
